Nursing Graduate Creates Medical Exam Tutorials

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Ryan Patton

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas graduate Ryan Patton started making videos as study aids when he was taking nursing and pre-med courses and now is one of the winners of a national contest that could lead to him receiving a contract with Khan Academy, a website with more than 4,300 micro lectures on video.

Patton was one of 15 winners selected in a nationwide video competition to create video tutorials to help students study for the Medical College Admission Test. Patton plans to apply to medical schools this fall. Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization that provides free, online educational materials for users of all ages. In the past two years, more than 75 million people have used it.

Patton discovered the Khan website while he was looking for online videos on math and chemistry. He used the site for his own studying, but he also saw how he could create videos to help several friends he was tutoring.

“I was blown away when I saw how many things you can learn,” he said. “I started using it, and through that process coinciding with my last year and half of being in school, I fell in love with learning again.”

A friend told Patton about the video competition sponsored by Khan Academy, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He used a screen-capturing program and drew on a graphics tablet that made it look like he was drawing on a sketch book.

“I write on a virtual sheet of paper what I’m talking about,” he said. “The goal of Khan’s tutorials is that it feels like someone is sitting next to you, explaining concepts.”

For his contest submission, Patton made three 10-minute videos for the contest with 10 questions each about topics such as the endocrine system and the relationship between the hypothalamus and pituitary glands. An example of Patton’s work can be viewed online.

The prize was an opportunity to go to California to work with the Khan Academy and a possible contract to continue the work. Patton returned July 21 from an all-expenses paid, weeklong training program in San Francisco working with the other winners and Rishi Desai, a medical doctor who directs the medical education portion of the Khan Academy site.

“It was intense and one of the better experiences of my life,” Patton said. “Rishi Desai’s task was to make all of us proficient at making videos. He set a standard of quality appropriate for the Khan Academy site.”

The team set up a plan for how to tackle all the topics they wanted to cover with new videos on concepts that will be tested by the new MCAT2015 exam. The first tutorials for the new collection are expected to be available this fall through Khan Academy’s online learning library and the pre-health collection of the Association of American Medical Colleges free repository of instructional materials.

“We met daily for peer review and there was some harsh criticism and a lot of editing,” Patton said. “We were able to get a lot accomplished and we had fun, too.”

The team also met with Salman Khan, creator of the website.

Patton said Khan and Desai will review all the videos the team created before offering work contracts to the contest winners. The team’s goal is to be finished in a year’s time, and most of the work would be done from their homes across the country.

“Most of us are in medical school or professors or in similar roles, and we are all plugged into the group network site,” he said. “We can see what the others are doing and offer peer review. There will be some potential for travel and group conferences.”

Patton, who grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2011. He attained his Registered Nurse license that summer and went to work full time in the intensive-care unit at Mercy Northwest Arkansas in Rogers.

Patton enrolled again at the University of Arkansas for the spring 2012 semester to take pre-requisite courses for medical school from the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences while he continued to work as a nurse.

He plans to submit medical school applications in August. Interviews are typically held later in the fall, and applicants hear back from schools in the early spring. He has also been offered a clinical instructor’s position in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing.

While enrolled in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing, Patton won the school’s nurse caregiver award. He was also the recipient of the David R. Banks Endowed Scholarship in Nursing given by the College of Education and Health Professions.